


On the cusp of death (it won't be us)

by ElixirBB



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst fic, Blood, Creepy Undertones, Criminal Masterminds, Dark fic, F/M, Molly is not who she appears to be, Murder, Sex, Sociopath!Molly, Suicide, Trigger Warnings Galore, Violence, coarse language, like all kinds of sex, please please heed these warnings, some noncon stuff going on, there's no going back from this one folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:14:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElixirBB/pseuds/ElixirBB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always knew she would be the last one standing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jillypups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/gifts).



> For Jillypups. Because I love her and she is amazing. 
> 
> Just a head’s up: you’re going to need a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief for this story. Like a lot of it really. Because some of the shit I come up with, well, it’s a wee bit far-fetched and you’re all probably like ‘what the hells is BB on about now?’ So, this is me, giving you a warning. It’s going to be one of those stories. (Just an FYI: Title of the story comes from Macklemore’s song Otherside; each chapter title comes from the song Nothing but the Water by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals; and every chapter is based on a song, which will be listed below. In short, I still own nothing.)

It's dark when she steps onto the roof, breathing in the cold air. It burns her throat, stinging her nostrils and she shoves her hand in the pockets of her lab coat, her jumper barely keeping her warm against the cold wind.

The gravel crunches beneath her shoes as she makes her way to the ledge and her heart lurches when she glances down, crouching, she swings one leg over the ledge and the other following, until her legs are dangling off the ledge, one nudge away from falling.

The moon is brilliant in the sky, illuminating the streets and shadows that dance across buildings and streets and across the yard of the place she called home, the place she laughed, cried, schemed, raged and planned in. She can hear everything from up here, see everything from the ledge.  _Here_ , she thinks,  _is a beautiful and haunting place where lost souls come to conquer and many fail._

(But not Molly. Never Molly.)

It isn't until her hands are numb and she can't feel her fingers or her toes, that she smiles into the night, where no one can see her and her eyes gleam as she takes in all the lights and thinks,  _mine_.

(She always knew she would be the last one standing.)

* * *

 

"Do you need something?" He says. He has a mop of dark hair, eyes gleaming with something maniacal, something unhinged, as they rove over her body, giving her a once over and it sends a shiver down Molly's spine. He's smiling at her, all teeth and no sincerity and she appreciates his lack of bullshit. She gives him a soft smile (in the future, she'll perfect the soft smile and the innocence but she knows, there are a select few who know the  _true_  her, a select few who know she is all angles and sharpness, willing and able to cut down anyone who stands in her way.  _The last one standing,_ she thinks to herself.)

_("Are you sure Molly?" Her father asks her one-day after he, her uncle and herself meet._

_Molly lifts her eyes and glances between her father and uncle, eyes clear and she nods sharply. "Him." She says, her voice unwavering. "I want him."_

_Her uncle leans back, glasses perched atop his nose and he stares down at her, like he used to do when she was child and she would sit on his lap, listening to him breathe as he talked to her father and smoked his pipe. Molly always hated that look. It made her feel like a child and after everything she's done, after everything she's proven herself to be at such a young age, she's anything_ but _a child. "He's unhinged, Molly."_

_She looks at her uncle, her brown eyes meeting his. "We're all a little fucking unhinged, aren't we Uncle?"_

_There is a ghost of a smile on his face, barely visible, except for the slight crinkle at the corner of his eyes._

_Her father pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Fine. You win."_

_She leans back in her chair, arms lounging on the armrests, legs crossed and as she looks down she can see her reflection in the black patent leather of her heels. She gives them a smile, all teeth and no sincerity (there is no room for sincerity in their world, in their lives, they're all liars, thieves, crooks and murderers, not that it bothers Molly, it's the family business after all), "I always do.")_

"You." She says, her eyes studying him as he huffs on his cigarette and flicks it to the ground. "I need you."

He rolls his eyes and steps closer to her until he's a hair's breadth away from her lips and all she can smell is the nicotine and his cologne (Hugo Boss) and something else that she thinks is purely him. "`Bout fucking time, Molls." He snaps his teeth at her as his arms snake around her waist, his hand going to the small of her back and he pulls her to him, pressing her against him and her mind wanders as it always does when she's with Jim and they're thinking of a future that will be hers and one name always,  _always_ , comes up and she gets lost in this  _one name_  and everything he has and can offer her. He's all she can think about, all she can breathe in. It's just  _him_.

Only  _him_.

_Always him_.

"Good plans need time, Jim. You of all people should know that." She steps closer, wraps her arms around his neck, until there is no space between them, her lips touching his. "Now," she says, excitement tingling up every nook of her spine, "tell me more about Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

 

"I know his brother." Her uncle tells them. "A fat little fuck who thinks he'll one day run the country."

"Will he?" Molly asks.

Her uncle laughs and scratches his chin. "Likely." He concedes. His eyes train on her and she's proud when she doesn't squirm under his gaze. "Why Sherlock Holmes?"

She shrugs one shoulder at him, staring at the picture of said man in front of her. He's all angles and sharpness (like her) and she feels her heart speed up and her hands begin to clam and she imagines how it would be to run this entire network, this entire empire with him at her side. They'd be unstoppable.

Unbeatable.

They would be _so_  fucking glorious together.

"Why  _not_  Sherlock Holmes?"

Her uncle doesn't say anything and they fall into a silence until she sighs and clears her throat. "He has a mind palace." She tells him and she sees the light in her uncle's eyes, she watches him process information and watches his mind run a mile a minute from his eyes. "I need you to teach me."

Her uncle cocks an eyebrow at her. "You want a mind palace of your own?" He sounds almost gleeful.

She leans forward, elbows on the mahogany table. "I want a fucking fortress."

He grins and it's all teeth (a family trait she'll later attest it to) and for a minute, she thinks that  _this_  is her uncle who always held her and who always protected her and who pushed her to be the person she was always meant to be. He looks younger when he smiles like this, he looks…almost normal. It's strange, and it doesn't suit him (it doesn't suit any of them, really. They were never meant to be normal, anyways.) "Molly, Molly. You always were the apple of our eyes, weren't you?"

She smirks and thus her fortress begins to form.

* * *

 

Sherlock Holmes starts off as a phantom. As a game.

It shouldn't catch Molly by surprise then that he becomes more of an obsession than a game.

(It shouldn't, but it still does. Just a little bit.)

* * *

 

The day before she goes to Uni, her father comes to see her.

She's on the roof of the house, sitting on the ledge, legs dangling over the ledge as she looks out across the apple orchids in front of her. She can see everything and hear everything from her little spot on the ledge, one nudge away from falling. She closes her eyes and feels the warm September breeze that blows through her hair.

"I feel like I should part some fatherly wisdom on you." He says and she can hear the humor, laced with melancholy and maybe a bit of nostalgia for what could have been.

( _Sometimes_ , her mother once whispered to her, when Molly was younger and her father was gone with his brother building, creating and sustaining an empire that Molly will one day call her own,  _I feel like I'm not strong enough_. She trails a finger down Molly's cheek and her breath hitches,  _you're just like them, you know. Your father and his brother, you've always been smart, smarter than me and you'll be smarter than them. I know you will. You'll be the last one standing, Molly_. She takes in a deep breath and presses a kiss to her temple,  _and sometimes, I think I hate you for that_.)

She waits for her dad to sit beside her, but he doesn't. Instead, he stands behind her, his shadow looming over her.

And then she remembers her father's fear of heights and she wants to laugh because for the longest time she always thought her father wasn't afraid of anything.

( _We're made of tougher stuff, Molly_ , he would tell her,  _we don't owe the world shit, it's the world that owes_ us _and we're going to fucking_ take it _._ )

"Are you then?" She asks, still staring ahead. "Going to impart fatherly wisdom on me?"

"Would you listen to me, even if I did?"

"Probably not."

Her father snorts out a laugh and rubs at his chest. He's getting older, her father, and her breath catches when she remembers him grimacing and complaining of chest pains.

_("Probably from all the scheming and thieving and blackmailing. You know, shit that rots the heart and soul. I'm getting too old for this."_

" _Yes," her uncle drawls, "because God forbid it be from all the smoking and drinking."_

" _Well," her father grins, "there's probably that too.")_

"This thing," her father starts slowly, "with Jim, think you can control him?"

She laughs because it's  _absurd_. She can't _control_  James Moriarty. Nobody can control him. He can't even control himself and she thinks that's what she likes most about him. "No." She tells him. "I don't think I can control him, but, Jim knows his place. He knows his role. We've all got parts to play in due time."

"Molly, why Sherlock Holmes?"

And because she still doesn't really have an answer, she gives him the same one she gave her uncle, "why  _not_  Sherlock Holmes?"

They stay there in silence before she hears her father shuffle his feet and hears the gravel crunch underneath his shoes.

"You know," her father says softly, voice carrying with the breeze. "Your mother, I think she would have liked it."

"Liked what?"

"You taking on her maiden name."

"Well," Molly replies, looking over her shoulder for the first time to meet her father's gaze, "Hooper does flow better off the tongue than Magnussen."

Her father nods his head and stares at her, "but you'll never forget who you really are."

She turns back around and watches as moon peaks through the cloud and illuminates them in its haunting light. "I don't think I would even want to."

(From her spot on the ledge, looking down at the apple orchids, she sees a shift and then a drop and from her vantage point and from the light of the moon she sees an apple, roll from its branch and onto the ground. She watches as her uncle walks out of house and onto the grass, watches as he walks forward, pauses, stares at the fallen apple and then grabs it, wiping it on his trousers before taking a bite that echoes into the night. He looks up then, mouth full of apple and nods at her, raising the apple as a cheers and then leaves, continuing to eat the fruit.)

_(Molly, you always were the apple of our eyes.)_

* * *

 

To everyone at Uni, she's Molly Hooper, budding pathologist in the making who prefers her people dead to living.

She's a happy young woman, with interesting jumpers, a small, innocent smile and a bumbling disposition when talking to others. She's awkward and cute and smart.

She takes a deep breath as her eyes narrow on him, his mop of black curly hair visible from the beakers and chemicals. She makes her way towards him, bumping into people on purpose and fumbling out an apology with as sincere a smile as she can muster (no teeth, just lips pulled over). When she dumps her books on the desk, he doesn't jump or flinch, instead she studies him as she slides into her seat.

She studies his long fingers steepled underneath his chin and studies the way his eyes move behind his closed eyelids and studies the way his mouth moves as he mouths words and sentences and she wonders what is in his mind palace, wants to delve into it and carve out a room belonging just to her. She wants to get into his blood, into his soul until she consumes him whole.

Not even a moment later, he comes out of his trance and it's almost violent the way he opens his eyes and she gasps, not because she's afraid (because she's not, Molly isn't afraid of anything) but because his eyes are a more startling shade of blue and green than she previously thought.

"Hi." She says, a bit too cheerily and a bit too loudly, but she sticks her hand out in front of her. "I'm Molly. Molly Hooper. I suppose we're partners then."

He looks at her as if she's alien and her smile wavers only slightly and her hand trembles, just a little bit, until he hesitantly puts his hand in hers. It's large and encompasses hers completely, until she can't even see her hand anymore and he pumps it once and then twice, his fingers pressing against her pulse point in her wrist and she cocks an eyebrow at him, amused. His eyes furrow as he stares at his fingers and feels the rapid pulse underneath her skin, muscle, tissue and bone. "I suppose we are. Partners that is."

She lets go of his hand and brings it to her side, gives him a reassuring smile and looks out the window, where the sun is shining and people are milling about. Her eyes scour the yard until she finds who she's looking for. He's leaning against a lamp post, his jacket unbuttoned and cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth, but he's there, Jim. Studying everyone around him. Studying her. Studying Sherlock and she gives him a small nod, unnoticeable to everyone (Molly does a lot of things unnoticeable to everyone else.)

She looks forward when the professor comes storming in and she hides her glee when five minutes in, Sherlock drawls out an answer and then a retort and proceeds to disentangle the professor's personal life.

After class is dismissed and the professor is glaring at Sherlock who stares back at him, Molly leans forward, her breath hot in his ear, "that was brilliant."

He turns around and looks at her with hesitant and accusing eyes, studying her, scrutinizing her, trying to deduce her. She thinks it's cute that he's attempting to try. "That's not what most people say." He replies in a distant voice and for the first time, Molly hears rather than sees the hesitance and she wonders just how broken and vulnerable Sherlock Holmes really is and how well he's hidden his loneliness from the world.

"What do you usually say?" She asks conversationally, as she packs her books away.

"Piss off."

Molly lets out a small huff and she shakes her head. "Well, I think that it was brilliant." She walks around and stops, turning her head to look at him, deciding against her better judgment, to give him a little look into who she is. "And I'm not like most people."

"No." Her murmurs after a moment of silence. "You aren't, are you?"

She smiles and waves. "See you around Sherlock."

_And so_ , she thinks, as she walks away, through the mass of people talking about trivial things, _the game begins_.


	2. Many are the weak (and the strong are few)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You that smut warning? It starts this chapter. 
> 
> Smutty smut smut.

“Tell me again how you first saw him.”

 

Jim groans and rolls over on his stomach, the blanket shifting down, leaving the expanse of his naked back to the chilled air. She watches as the hair rises on edge and his skin erupts in little goosebumps. He shivers and she catalogues the way his body moves and stores it in her mind (in her fortress made of stone that always smells of apples.) It’s little moments like these, when his body responds to the cold, or when he sneezes and then curses, or when he grips her hips so hard that he imprints little half-moon scars on them, that she’s reminded he’s human.

 

They’re both human.

 

(A little bit too fucked up and little bit too damaged from the life they lead and the cards they dealt themselves, but they’re still human and Molly thinks it has to count for something.)

 

“You’re like a dog after a bone. _Tell me about when you first met Sherlock_ , _tell me when you first knew Sherlock was brilliant_ , _guess what Sherlock said today?_ Sherlock. Sherlock. _Sherlock_. Fucking _Sherlock Holmes_.”

 

She glances at him from the corner of her eyes, her body sinking into the bed, bending her knees until her feet are flat on the mattress. She laughs, long and hard. “Jimmy, are you jealous of Sherlock?”

 

“Should I be?” He snaps back at her.

 

The thing with James Moriarty is that he’s possessive. Brilliant and scary but possessive and Molly’s eyes flash with annoyance because she knows that he thinks he _has_ her. That she’s _his_ and only _his_. She lashes out, her hand catching his chin and grips it tight enough for him to hiss. She flips around, gets on her knees, the blanket falling away from her, uncaring of her nudity. She grips him harder. “If _I_ want to talk about Sherlock, I’ll talk about Sherlock. If _I_ want to talk about the Spanish Inquisition, I’ll talk about the Spanish Inquisition. If _I_ want to talk about dead bodies, I’ll fucking talk about dead bodies.” She leans forward, breath panting. “Don’t forget Jimmy, I made you. _I_ fucking _made you_ and I can just as easily tear you down. Do you understand me?” She adds softly, her brown eyes boring into his.

 

He glares at her and she sees his erection straining against him. She grins wickedly and kisses him without hesitation, mouth latching onto his and teeth gnashing into each other until all she can taste is the hot metallic taste of blood.

 

(Her nails scorch along his back, marking him as hers and only hers. His mouth works the place underneath her ear, the one place that makes her gasp, but never plead, because Molly never begs. The bed slams against the wall, the mattress squeaking in time with their thrusts and it is messy and animalistic and completely _theirs_.)

 

Their backs are to the headboard, the blankets kicked to the bottom of the bed, unabashed by their nudity. She drapes her arms across her knees, and takes in a deep breath. “Tell me again,” she says, “how you first saw him.”

 

(He tells her a story about a pool, stolen trainers, Sherlock and boy named Carl Powers.)

 

* * *

 

“We can…we can study together. I mean, it’s just…kinda hard, yeah? It’d probably be better if it were both of us…studying. For the exam, obviously.”

 

He blinks at her, his blue-green eyes wide and she wants to laugh, but instead she wrings her hands and gives him a shy smile behind the hair that has fallen into her face. “I don’t need to study.”

 

Neither does she, realistically. Molly is incredibly bright and if she’s honest, the class bored her. “Oh.” She says, her voice high and smile too bright, “that’s fine. I know. You’re…well…you’re brilliant so of course you’ll ace the exam. I’m…I’ll be at the library…if you change your mind.”

 

She walks away from him, leaving him in the hallway with jostling students, eager to start their holiday break.

 

She ignores the sudden gripping pain that overwhelms her chest and she frowns, hand rubbing the spot, too close to her heart.

 

* * *

 Much to the annoyance of her neighbors at the next table, she taps her pencil while studying. The steady _whack, whack, whack,_ soothing to her. She pretends to not see their glares or their huffs and puffs and she stares at words and equations that make sense to her, but recognizes that she won’t be taking anything in.

 

She starts, curse falling from her lips when she sees a swirl of black and then blue-green eyes. She blinks, shocked and ignores the somersaults her stomach does and the sudden urge to vomit.

 

She gives him a small smile as he stares at her, as if not knowing what he’s doing here and part of her wonders what he _is_ doing here and another part of her, the predominant part that she fights with constantly, wants to _consume_ him. She wants to drag him by the collar of his shirt and press her lips to his, wrapping her arms around his neck until his body is flushed against hers and all she can smell, taste, feel is Sherlock Holmes.

 

(She wants to wrap herself around him until she doesn’t know where she ends and he begins.)

 

She sucks in a deep breath. “ _I don’t need to study.”_ She parrots his words back to him.

 

He gives her a barely there smile, his long and thin fingers tapping the table in tune with the _whack, whack, whack_ of her pencil. “Leaving you to study on your own, decreases the chances of you getting the marks you need for pathology and I need a pathologist.”

 

She never told him about wanting to do pathology, but she’s not surprised that he deduces it. He deduces everything (except for the enigma sitting in front of him and Molly thinks this is her greatest and crowning achievement.)

 

“You need a pathologist?”

 

He rolls his eyes and he sighs (it’s almost a groan and it’s loud enough for people to huff and puff and glare at them), shoulders dropping as he looks at her through his mass of curls. “Do keep up Molly. You are not that stupid.”

 

She laughs quietly, leaning back, “What makes you think I want to be your pathologist.”

 

He cocks an eyebrow at her and she laughs aloud, covering her mouth with her hand. She shakes her head and gets up, “before we start studying, I need coffee. Want one?”

 

He nods, eyes scanning the books and her notes, “black, two sugars.”

 

* * *

 

“How’s it coming along?” Her uncle asks her one night.

 

She’s in the living room, curled in the wing-back chair in front of the fireplace, hands curled around a cup of tea and watching the snowstorm as it swirls and howls outside, her father sits on the opposite side of the room, playing a haunting melody on the grand piano. “Fine.” She tells him.

 

He takes a seat on the other chair and stares at her, saying nothing.

 

Her father continues to play and Molly is sure it’s Chopin. She places her cup on the side, eyes staring into the fire, leaning forward until her chin rests on her knee.

 

(She remembers when she was younger and how their house would always smell like gingerbread, cinnamon and peppermint during the holidays. Christmas was her mother’s favorite time of year, but not as much as she loved New Years. _It’s a new year, Molly. Make a wish and it’ll come true._

_How do you know it’ll come true?_ Molly would ask her.

_Because it’s the first one of the New Year…did you make a wish yet?_

 

Every year, Molly would wish for her family to be happy and every year, her mother fell deeper and deeper into the pit they dug for her.)

 

_(I’m not strong enough._

_You’ll be the last one standing, Molly._

_…Sometimes, I think I hate you for that.)_

 

“What are you thinking about so intently, apple?” Her uncle asks, peering at her over his glasses. He takes them off, hand digging into the pocket of his robe as he takes out a handkerchief and blows on the lenses, rubbing them and cleaning them methodically.

 

She blinks. “Mom. I’m thinking about my mother.”

 

She winces when her father’s fingers slip and an ungodly sound emits from the piano.

 

“What do you think about when you think of her?”

 

She thinks how her mother would hate the woman Molly is becoming. She thinks that her mother would rail against them and fight them. She thinks that her mother probably regrets not leaving in the early days, grabbing Molly in the middle of the night and disappearing, like she often told Molly they would do. She thinks of her mother’s tears and her mother’s declining disposition. She thinks about that day, that fateful day, coming home from school and opening the front door, calling out for her mother, a drawing for Mother’s Day clenched tightly in her hand, cheeks flushed with excitement. She thinks about bounding up the stairs and into her parent’s room, where her mother had taken to bed rest and when she doesn’t see her on the bed, she remembers pushing the adjoining bathroom door open and then all she remembers is _red_.

 

A deep dark, almost black, crimson red, as it pools and stains the white floor. She remembers the paleness of her mother’s face; the dead, empty look of her eyes; the blue of her lips; she remembers dropping the card and watching it float through the air until it hits the floor, momentum placing it over the pool of blood.

 

She thinks about how her father came home, came up the stairs, into the room, saw Molly and her dead mother ( _his dead wife_ ) and she remembers his cries. His screams. His pleas for her to come back. _Don’t do this to me. Dora. Dora. Don’t you fucking dare. You promised me._

 

She remembers her uncle, taking her the hand and pulling her into his lap, fingers tucking her hair behind her ear.

 

 _“Molly, listen to me very carefully. Are you listening to me?”_ At her nod, he continues, _“Sometimes, people are not strong enough for what we do.”_ And then he doesn’t say anything else, as if that is all the explanation she needs.

 

_(You’ll be the last one standing, Molly.)_

 

“Molly?” Her father calls out and if Molly didn’t know her father as well as she does, she would have missed the slight tremor in his voice.

 

She gives him a small smile and grabs her tea that has gone cold and she hides a grimace as she takes a sip. “I remember how much she used to love the holidays.” She blurts out, easing back into the chair as her father snorts and then reminiscences about his dead wife and the only love of his life.

 

_(You’ll be the last one standing, Molly._

_…Sometimes, I think I hate you for that.)_

 

* * *

 

Winter turns into spring and spring turns into the end of first year of Uni.

 

She concentrates on her studies and concentrates on Jim making the right connections with the right people. She concentrates on growing the business and empire because this is her birthright; it’s everything she has worked for.

 

Meanwhile, Sherlock starts using, and so, she concentrates on keeping him alive.

 

* * *

 

They’re in Organic Chemistry together and after they write the exam, she invites him back to her flat. The one she doesn’t share with Jim or her father and uncle, but rather the one she has to herself.

 

They drink to the end of the school year.

 

They drink to not killing any of their professor. Or their fellow classmates.

 

They drink to the beginning of summer.

 

They drink to a lot of things.

 

They drink until they can’t drink anymore and Sherlock leans forward, lips sloppily slanting over hers, his large hands framing her face as he sucks her soul and heart out through her mouth.

 

His hands leave her face and roam everywhere, with no destination in mind and she finds herself just as frantic, moaning and gasping into his mouth, unwilling to part from his lips for even a second.

 

(He tastes like tequila and heroin with a hint of sandalwood and Molly throws her arms around his neck and presses herself against him until there is no space between them.)

 

They topple off the sofa and onto the floor and Molly thinks the wind has been knocked out of her, but then she thinks it’s just the feeling she gets from Sherlock fingers tracing the line of her knickers and then inserting a finger into her. She yelps and whines and arches her back against the hard floor.

 

“Sherlock.” She moans, opening her eyes, unsure of when she had closed them, “the bed.”

 

He shakes his head and kisses her again, stealing any words and breath from her. He withdraws his finger and she whines at the sudden loss. She can hear the unbuckling of a belt and the hurriedly unzipping of a zipper, hears the ripping of a foil and grunts as he rolls the condom on and she feels him tear her knickers down her legs and off to the side, shoving her dress past her hips, placing his hands on each side of her head.

 

When he enters her, it’s not slowly, he is not gentle, but rather like Jim, in the way that they are both hurried. Sherlock groans and thrusts against her and she wants to feel more of him, so she rips the buttons off his pretty blue shirt and runs her hands over his chest, pulling her legs up and moaning when the movement takes him in deeper.

 

He looks glorious like this; his shirt ripped, pants not even completely off, curls an erratic mess and sweat lining his body, his body stilling, head tilted back, as if savoring the way she feels around him.

 

She clenches around him and he hisses. “Sherlock,” she breathes, “Sherlock. Fuck. I need…Sherlock.”

 

He moves his hips just a little bit, experimentally and Molly’s mouth drops open with a sudden realization. _She’s his first_.

 

For _fuck’s_ sake, she took Sherlock Holmes’ virginity and she didn’t even know it.

 

(It almost makes her feel guilty for the times before when she and Jim would fuck and she thinks it would have been so _glorious_ to have been each other’s firsts.)

 

“Sherlock.” She whispers, hands leaving his chest and wrapping around his neck, bring his face down to hers. She presses soft kisses on his mouth. “Sherlock, it’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay. You can…you have to…move. Sherlock, _please.”_

 

With a ragged groan, he moves. It’s sloppy and the movements are jerky and when he thrusts, he sometimes thrusts too deeply and she sobs because _holy fuck_ , he’s _perfect_. _He’s perfect_. Everything about him is just _fucking magnificent_.

 

“Sherlock. God. Sherlock. Yes. _Yes_. There. _Please_. More. Oh. _Oh…oh, Sherlock_.” She babbles and moans and groans and she can feel her orgasm building, clenching around him as she arches wildly. With a groan, she pushes Sherlock back, his cock slipping out of her with an obscene sound. He looks at her wildly and he doesn’t even have a chance to say anything before she’s yanking him to a sitting position and she’s sinking back on his cock. Her hands yank down her dress, her breasts bare to the air, nipples tightening and she grabs Sherlock’s hands and places them atop them, squeezing them in her hands. “Just like that.”

 

He’s a brilliant learner, and a fast one and she coos and gasps when he pinches her nipples. She rocks against his cock, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other finding purchase on the floor. She knows when he’s going to orgasm because he stiffens and his body jerks, gasps torn from his mouth.

 

She’s partly crying and laughing as she rocks against him until she explodes, a scream torn from her throat.

_“Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock.”_

 

(It isn’t until later, after one more bout of mind-boggling sex that she realizes the words spilling from her mouth were pleas; _Sherlock, more. Sherlock, please. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock._ )

 

(Molly doesn’t beg for anything. _Except_ for Sherlock Holmes.)

 

* * *

 

When she goes back home for the summer holidays, her father meets her in the living room.

 

“I have cancer.” He tells her, point blank.

 

(Molly transfers universities to one closer to home. _It’s easier for school and work,_ she tells her father and uncle.)

 

(Molly doesn’t see or hear from Sherlock Holmes for eight years.

 

…But that doesn’t mean she forgets him. Molly doesn’t forget anyone. Especially not _Sherlock Holmes_.)

 

* * *

 

The next time she sees him, she’s a pathologist.

 

He’s the world’s only Consulting Detective.

 

(He’s still high and she’s all kinds of messed up.)

 

“Sherlock.” Greg Lestrade sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is Doctor Molly Hooper. The new pathologist, since _you_ made Doctor Saunier retire early.”

 

She sees the flash of recognition and she blinks, a small, “oh,” falling from her lips.

 

(And this, she thinks, this is the start of the end.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck you guys are awesome. Like seriously so fucking awesome. THANK YOU SO MUCH!


	3. The old world has brought me pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Jillypups

It’s raining and Molly is looking over everything methodically. She’s scouring through their plans that have been decades in the making and there is a feeling in the depth of her stomach, something that pulls and yanks and she doesn’t know whether to be excited or terrified.

 

The air is alive with static and she can feel Jim’s presence in the doorway.

 

She cocks an eyebrow at him, wordlessly asking him what he wants.

 

He leans against the doorframe, his shoulder supporting the wood, his arms crossed over his chest. “We’re positive this is going to work?”

 

“Are you doubting me Jim?” She asks.

 

He snorts and gives her a small smirk, his hooded eyes looking at her and she’s suddenly brought back to when they were younger and they spent their days and nights learning each other’s bodies (and even though it’s almost been a decade later, the only body she can think about, the only body she yearns for is Sherlock Holmes and everything- _everything_ is for Sherlock.) “You?” He says, “never.”

 

She hears what he doesn’t say; _I’d follow you into the deepest circle of hell_ (because the deepest circle of hell is reserved for people like Molly and Jim.)

 

(A crack of thunder is heard and she feels it shake the foundation of their flat, a zap of lightening illuminates the sky with a howl of wind and their flat is enveloped in darkness.)

 

This is where they belong. This is where they make their home.

 

In darkness.

 

* * *

 

“We’re going to be here all night looking at these.” Molly tells him, her fingers clenched tightly in the pockets of her lab coat.

 

“You don’t have plans.” Sherlock says matter-of-factly and almost smugly and she has the sudden urge to smack the smirk off his face. “Except for going home, feeding your cat and indulging in one too many glasses of wine. Am I keeping you from anything important, Doctor Hooper?”

 

“Molly.” She says automatically, “My name is Molly.” Her blood is boiling and she can feel her nails dig into her skin. She gives him a slight depreciating smile, her eyes twinkling, “I’m sure you remember calling me that.”

 

They’ve never acknowledged knowing each other in the past. They’ve never acknowledged that she was his first and she’s never acknowledged that he’s taken over her fortress and consumed her whole. (It’s at night though, in the cloak of darkness, that she remembers the phantom feeling of his hands on her skin and the way his cock fits so perfectly inside of her and she remembers his hot breath against her lips and she remembers his ragged groans and her pleas. She remembers everything at night.)

 

“I need coffee.” She mutters, tearing her eyes from his as he scrutinizes her. _What do you see?_ She wants to ask him. _Do you see me? Have you ever seen me?_ “Do you want one?”

 

“Black-”

 

“Two sugars.” She finishes. “Sherlock, I _know.”_

 

(When the doors close behind her, she vaguely thinks she hears a soft, _me too.)_

 

* * *

 “No.” Molly is adamant. Her voice holding no room for argument.

 

“Molly.” Her father says, his voice weary and his expression tired. He’s grown older, her father. He looks years older than he actually is and she wants to weep when she looks at him. He’s physically slower and weaker than he should be and she knows that he thinks this will make him feel useful but she can’t. She _can’t._

 

“It’s dangerous.” She tells him.

 

“Our lives are dangerous.” He reminds her. _This life I brought you into_.

 

“Things could go wrong.”

 

“Yet you’re willing to take this gamble with the other man.”

 

“I could give two shit’s about the other man.” Molly hisses and she’s distantly aware of the door opening and closing the smell of smoke and apples invades her senses and she knows it’s her uncle. “I _care_ about _you_. You’re sick. You’re dying.” She feels her breath catch and the words die in her throat.

 

And there it is. The crux of the matter. Her father, the one person in her life that has always been there and has been the center of her world for so long, is dying. In retrospect, she knew he would die before her, but she always thought he would die in a blaze of glory rather than in a hospital bed with medicine pumped through his system and wires clinging to him. (Because without her father, who else does she have left? Jim? Her uncle? That’s a scary thought. _Sherlock,_ her mind whispers, _you have Sherlock_. _And that_ , she thinks, _is an even scarier one_.)

 

Looking at him, at his eyes once full of life and now full of acceptance at what is likely to come, Molly knows she’s going to cave. She sighs and closes her eyes, “you’re _not_ allowed to die.” She says.

 

Her father laughs and Molly is transported back to a time when her father was healthy and their house smelled like gingerbread, cinnamon and peppermint and her mother would laugh and her parents would kiss and life was simple. (But their life was never simple. It was just an illusion.)

 

She looks over her shoulder at her uncle who says nothing and then turns back to her father who is already planning everything.

 

(There is a sinking feeling in her stomach and Molly doesn’t know whether she should cry or vomit or laugh hysterically. In the end, she opts to just stand there and listen to her father talk, memorizing his every feature and every move, cataloguing him in her fortress, ensuring his immortality in their mortal life.)

 

* * *

 

“Someone died.” Sherlock announces.

 

John rolls his eyes and Molly keeps her fury and rage and grief bottled up. “We’re in a morgue, Sherlock. Of course, someone has died.”

 

Sherlock shakes his head. “No.” He says, his eyes tracking Molly. “ _Someone died_.”

 

Molly clears her throat and wills away the tears. “My dad.” She says softly. “He died.”

 

“God.” John is aghast and sympathetic. Pity and empathy flowing through his eyes. “Molly, I am _so_ sorry.”

 

_You should be_ , Molly snarls in her head. Her eyes burn and she shakes her head, collecting her breath, imagining the multiple ways she can kill John Watson and get away with it (and _it’s every way imaginable_ , because Molly is creative and pathology has aided her in hiding multitude of things.)

 

“How’d he die?” John asks and it’s like he regrets asking it as soon as the words come out of his mouth. It’s instinctive, she knows this. To follow sympathy with curiosity. It’s human nature to want to know how and when and why.

 

_You shot him_ , she wants to tell him (she wants to rage, she wants to hit him and scratch him, she wants to watch him bleed and when he’s on his knees begging for mercy, she wants to kill him, to watch the life drain from his eyes and she wants to tell him; _a life for a life_ ), _you shot and killed the only person in my life who was sane enough to keep me going._ Except, she can’t tell him that her father was the cabbie who threatened to kill Sherlock. She can’t tell him about how she raged and broke _every single fucking thing_ in their house. She can’t tell him about how her grief fuels her plans, her cause, her fucking life.

 

_(You’re going to be the last one standing,)_

 

“Cancer.” Molly replies. “Cancer.”

 

She doesn’t listen to John’s apologies. Instead she glances over his head and notices Sherlock staring at her, an indiscernible look on his face.

 

(And not for the first time, she wonders what he sees when he looks at her.)

 

* * *

 “I want him to suffer.” Molly says, her eyes rimmed red and her voice echoing in the graveyard with a restrained fury.

 

“I can torture him before we kill him.” Jim offers and he says it so nonchalantly, as if it’s nothing.

 

She shakes her head, thinking back to how all she wanted to do when she found out was wrap her hands around his neck and squeeze. But that’s not how Molly works, she’s diligent, she’s perfected torture and she knows John Watson’s weaknesses, she knows his pressure points and she plans to exploit them all. “No. _No_. I don’t want to kill him. I want to make him _suffer_. I want to take everything good in his life and I want to _destroy_ it.”

 

Her eyes shift to the side to stare at her uncle who stands to her left and he looks at her, mouth set in a grim line and nods, pride shining through his eyes as if saying; _welcome to the family, welcome to the fold, it’s just you and I left, Apple._

 

“How’d you suppose we do that?”

 

“Easy.” Molly replies, eyes staring ahead at the tombstone, mind memorizing every curve of the every letter. “We kill Sherlock Holmes.”

 

(The words taste like ash coming out of her mouth but out of the ashes rises a phoenix. Or so they say.)

 

* * *

 Her uncle is the one to introduce Irene Adler to Jim.

 

Jim is the one who introduces Irene Adler to Sherlock.

 

Sherlock introduces Irene Adler to Molly early Christmas morning, after he tore into her and ridiculed her.

 

(His words did hurt her, because all she can think about, all she can think about are his hands and his mouth and the way he fit perfectly in her and how he’s all she craves. But words, _his_ words, they hurt and sometimes, she wonders if he remembers her at all.)

 

Irene Adler is still alive.

 

(But not for long. Because Irene Adler, she’s a liability and Molly has never liked liabilities.)

 

* * *

 

“Who’re you?” Irene asks her, her lips painted a deep red, her dress a pristine white.

 

Molly leans forward, her back straight, legs crossed and hair pulled back tightly. “Molly.” She tells her quietly, “My name is Molly.”

 

A shadow of recognition flits across her eyes and she sighs deeply, sinking down into her couch. “You’re here to kill me then, I suppose?”

 

She has to hand it to her; the woman takes her impending death rather gracefully.

 

(In another life, Molly thinks she and Irene would have been best friends.)

 

Molly nods, “is there anything you’d like to say before I kill you?” It’s a courtesy that Molly doesn’t offer just anyone and while all she’d like to do is get this over with, she concedes that Irene Adler is good at what she does.

 

But Molly is better. (Molly is always better.)

 

Irene is silent before she leans back on her couch and crosses her arms over her chest and crosses her legs, heels tapping on the hardwood floor. “They’ve always underestimated you, haven’t they?” She murmurs.

 

“I’ll be the last one standing.” Molly vows.

 

“Of that, I have no doubt in my mind, Molly Magnussen.”

 

“Hooper.” Molly corrects. “Hooper.”

 

Irene laughs.

 

(She dies mid-laugh, her smile permanently etched on her face, mouth wide, lipstick red.)

 

* * *

 

“You killed her.” Her uncle says the next time he sees her. He’s sitting across the table from her, studying her.

 

“Are you upset?” Molly asks, unable to keep the snark from her voice. “Did I kill a favorite pet? Next time, don’t hire such an impressionable _whore_.”

 

“Isn’t that what you are?” He asks casually, cutting his steak into bite-sized pieces. “ _Impressionable?_ After all, isn’t all of _this_ ,” he waves his fork and knife around the room and at himself and then her, “all about your infatuation with some _boy_ , Apple?”

 

She grits her teeth and pushes her chair back. “I really hate that fucking name.” She tells him and then she leaves the room, grabbing her coat and slamming the front door behind her.

 

(Sherlock is more than some infatuation. He’s more than an obsession. He’s in her body. He’s in her mind. He’s in her soul.)

 

* * *

 “This is it.” Jim says.

 

“Everything we’ve worked for.” She agrees.

 

“He’s going to spend the next few years tearing down everything we’ve built.”

 

“No.” She corrects him, “he’s going to spend the next few years tearing down everything he _thinks_ we’ve built.” She studies the man in front of her, “are you ready?”

 

“Baby,” he says, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her body close to his, “I was born ready.”

 

She laughs and he catches it, sealing it with a kiss.

 

(His kisses taste like ash now, but out of the ashes rises a phoenix. Or so they say.)

 

* * *

 

“Sherlock,” she asks softly, knocking on the door quietly, “are you alright?” She winces as soon as the words come out of her mouth. “Sorry. Stupid question.”

 

“Molly.” He rumbles and she can hear the pain in his voice and for once, she wonders if this was all worth it. “ _Molly.”_

 

She toes off her shoes and tiptoes to the bed, lifting the covers and sinking in beside him. “What do you need, Sherlock?” She asks, running her fingers through his damp hair. “What do you need?”

 

“You.”

 

* * *

 

She’s breathing in deeply, struggling for words and a part of her is so angry that they fail her. She throws her head back, arches her back and lets out a feral moan, because the feel of Sherlock’s mouth between her legs sets her body on fire and she’s moaning and writhing beneath him and she can almost imagine the way his eyes light up with glee or the way he’s cataloguing how she twists and turns and cries out.

 

She doesn’t know how it happened; at first they’re drinking, cheering to his health and his impending mission to bring down Moriarty’s network ( _but it’s not his Sherlock, don’t you see that? It’s never been his. None of this has been his, it’s mine, all mine, everything belongs to me_ ) and the next moment they’re meeting somewhere in the middle, or maybe it’s Molly who throws her arms around his neck, desperate to recreate that night almost a decade ago when she felt every single part of him in her body.

 

(Maybe, just maybe, its even Sherlock who pulls her by the hem of her sweater and pulls her to him, crushing his lips to hers, trying to feel something, anything.)

 

(Molly has long since stopped trying to feel anything because people like her, people like _them,_ they feel _nothing_.)

 

Despite how it happened, how it begun (it began so long ago, so very long ago that Molly has forgotten a time when she hasn’t thought about Sherlock or a time when Sherlock isn’t the only thing consuming her every thought), all she can concentrate is the blinding explosion that is set off in her body. She’s taking in a shuddering breath, looking at him with hooded eyes. “Fuck, Sherlock.” She breathes out, “Where’d you learn that?” Then she claps a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. She pushes him away and gets up on weak and shaky knees, ripping off her shirt, unclasping her bra, letting it fall away from her and watches as his eyes narrow to her breasts and nipples that peak under his intense stare.

 

She’s grabbing a condom from her bedside drawer and climbing over him, her legs straddling him as she goes to roll the condom on his cock. She positions herself above him, hand grabbing him and placing him at her entrance and his hands wrap around her waist, engulfing her, squeezing tightly enough that she knows there will be bruises come the morning.

 

“Do you really want to know?” He asks. He keeps his voice unaffected, but Molly knows him better than that. She knows the little hitch in his voice, she knows that he aches just as much as she does and she knows that when he’s staring at her, he’s trying to discern who she is, because _this_ Molly and _his_ Molly are two different people (but they aren’t, are they? They’re one in the same. She’s just good at pretending, Molly is always so good at pretending.)

 

Her mind flashes back to a woman with dark hair, wearing a pristine white dress and lips painted a deep breath, forever caught in a laugh and she feels an intense rage, an intense emotion of jealousy that rips through her and she has never hated Irene fucking Adler more in her life than at this moment and if she could, she would kill her one hundred times over. “No.” Molly gasps out as she sinks onto him. “I don’t want to know.” And then she moves. She moves as if she’s possessed. She moves as if this is the last night on earth she has with him and she moves as if heaven and hell are being torn asunder, fighting over which one to take (but she knows, she just _knows_ that she’s going to the deepest circle of hell, because that’s reserved for people like her and all she wants is this moment, this night to pretend to be the Molly, Sherlock knows. To pretend to be the Molly that Sherlock could maybe, just maybe, feel something _more_ for.)

 

It’s not long before she’s crying out again, her body set alight and she’s moaning and gasping and pleading and maybe even sobbing because this is both everything and nothing like she imagined. Sherlock is both everything and nothing she remembers.

 

“Sherlock.” She moans over and over again, as if it’s her absolution, as if saying his name will save her from everything she’s done and everything she’s become and everything she will be.

 

She has never wanted to confess everything so badly as she does when she sees him orgasm. She wants to come clean and tell him everything and beg his forgiveness that she knows he will never give. Instead, she catches his groan with her lips and she swallows him whole. Her fingernails dig into his shoulders, giving him scars to match her bruises and she doesn’t stop kissing him, doesn’t stop memorizing the way he tastes and smells an.

 

His hands are splayed on her back, steadying her, his blue-green eyes boring into her and he lets out a breath, laying his forehead in between the valley of her breasts, his sweat-matted body sticking to hers. She runs her fingers through his damp curls, still situated on him and she can feel his lips moving across her skin. She pulls his hair when she finally understands his words.

 

“You. It’s you. You. It’s you.”

 

_You. It’s you. You. It’s you. You.It’syou.You.It’syou. Youyouyou._

 

(It can mean anything. It can mean everything.

 

But a sinking feeling in Molly’s stomach tells her it can only mean one thing.)

 

* * *

 

When she wakes up the next morning, her body is sore and the spot next to her is empty.

 

In fact, her flat is empty, evidence that he was even here, gone.

 

(She’s not surprised. Because if there’s one thing she and Sherlock have in common, it’s knowing how to disappear.)

 

* * *

 

Janine is Jim’s cousin and Tom is her boyfriend/fuck-buddy/soul-mate.

 

She’d laugh at the description, except she can actually see it. She can see it in the way Tom can ready Janine’s body language and facial expressions. She can see it in the way he reaches out for her when she laughs too hard and too forcefully and causes Molly to stare at her harder and she vaguely wonders what Janine has done and been through in her life.

 

Then again, her cousin is Jim Moriarty and Molly thinks that’s enough to make anyone go slightly crazy.

 

The more Molly studies Janine and Tom, the more she relates them to her own parents. (Janine, she thinks, is her father, brimming with ideas and plans and Tom is just along for the ride, a pitiful soul with the sorry excuse of falling in love with a woman who’s ambition is more than he can handle. Not everyone is made for this life and for a moment, just a moment, Molly feels bad for the inevitable fate that the future will hold for Tom. _Get out,_ Molly wants to tell him, _get out while you can_. But just like her mother, he stays unmoving and Molly looks away, unwilling to be another spectator.)

 

“Do you know what to do?”

 

Janine cocks an eyebrow at her and nods. “Of course we do.” She leans in towards Molly, “while Jimmy may love you and talk as if the sun sets and rises out of your ass, if you lay one hand on Tom, I’ll fucking rip your throat out. I don’t care who you are or who your uncle is.”

 

Molly laughs and it’s a loud sound, without any humor. “He’s not my type.”

 

They exchange a look and Janine nods, satisfied with what she sees swimming in Molly’s eyes.

 

(No. Molly only has eyes for Sherlock. She’s only _ever_ had eyes for Sherlock.)

 

* * *

 

“ _Congratulations,”_ Jim tells her on the phone. _“Your boyfriend has officially completed his task.”_

 

She looks at her uncle who is sitting across the table from her, smoking from his pipe and looking at her over the rim of his glasses. “Not quite. Enjoy retirement Jim.”

 

_“You’ll need me again.”_ He says confidently and with a laugh. “ _You’ll always need me, Molly Hooper.”_

 

_Magnussen,_ she wants to say. _I’m Molly Magnussen_. But she hasn’t been _Molly Magnussen_ for so long. “Maybe.” She replies, not taking her eyes off her uncle. “Maybe.”

 

* * *

 

_The flat is dark when she creeps into his room and slips underneath the covers._

_He’s having a nightmare, calling out names in his sleep and her chest lurches and twists when she hears her name being called out in a flurry. “I’m right here, Sherlock.” She whispers into his ear, kissing his pulse and feeling it thrum rapidly._

_He stills and buries himself in her arms like a child would._

_“I wonder,” she says quietly, “throughout all these years, did you remember me?” She’s almost terrified of his answer._

_It feels like hours later when he presses a kiss to her collarbone, tongue sweeping out and tasting her. “I never forgot.” He mutters just as quietly, and if Molly were anyone else, she would have missed it._

 

_But Molly isn’t anyone else and she heard it loud and clear._

_(I never forgot you._

_You. It’s you._

_You.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy moly, you guys are still so awesome. I love you all.


	4. I have seen what man can do (when the evil lives inside of you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going to need a heavy does of suspension of disbelief for this chappie. I take some...liberations with this one. Hope you all enjoy!

Janine and Molly spend nights talking about who Mary Morstan once was.

 

“Could have been a Yank, for all we know.” Janine snorts into her wine as she takes a large gulp.

 

Molly shakes her head. “She’s too refined, too British to have been a Yank.”

 

Janine shakes her head and picks at her nails, “she’s been telling me that she and John are getting along right proper, going to move in together and everything.” She sighs and puts her glass down, the red wine sloshing in the glass, staining it. “She told me that I was her first real girl friend.”

 

Molly studies Janine and frowns. She can read the hesitance, she can read the guilt and Molly can’t blame her, not really. Because Molly _knows_ guilt. She knows it deeply and thoroughly and knows that it’s her only link to feeling human. “You’re having second thoughts.” Molly says knowingly.

 

Janine flashes her a sheepish grin, her eyes warring with battles Molly knows well. “Is it all worth it? I don’t even fully know what the plan is, but is it…worth it?”

 

“You know all you need to know.” Molly informs her coolly, her eyes sharp, taking in every detail of Janine. She leans forward. “But _I_ need to know if _you_ can do this. Because if you can’t, there’s the fucking door and you’re lucky that you’re Jim’s family and I promised him I wouldn’t kill you.”

 

Janine rolls her eyes and drinks her wine, this time slower. She shrugs a shoulder. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Molly.” The brunette says, her voice almost chastising. “I know where I stand. I made a promise and Moriarty’s don’t break their promises.” There’s a pause and she squints at her, snorting and shaking her head. “You know, Jimmy, he warned me about you.”

 

“Did he.” It’s not a question, more like a statement. Jim warns _everyone_ he meets about her.

 

Janine nods. “Says you’ve got a heart made of ice and a fortress for a mind. Nothing can get out and nothing can get in.”

 

“Well,” Molly says, swirling her wine in her glass and watching as the red liquid swirls and swirls, “I would hate to prove him wrong.”

 

* * *

 

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Tom asks her, leaning against the doorjamb. He has his arms crossed over his chest, and for one moment he reminds her of Jim in that stance.

 

“Doesn’t _what_ get lonely?” Molly asks distractedly, her eyes pouring over papers and documents and plans.

 

“Being you.” It’s hesitant, almost quiet the way it creeps from his mouth and Molly’s head snaps up to look at him. “I just…what I mean to say is…” he flounders and then squares his shoulders, taking in a deep breath. “Is it worth it?”

 

Part of her feels bad for Tom. Because she _knows_ people like Tom. People who are so in over their head and who believe they know what they’re doing, only to not know anything at all and they are left disappointed and jaded and broken (and _dead_. People like Tom, people like her mother, they always end up dead.)

 

And suddenly, she wants to know _what is it_ with the Moriarty cousins and their tag-along that makes _them_ think they can question what _she_ has spent the majority of _her life_ planning?

 

It’s not that she doesn’t like Tom. He’s tolerable in that goofy sort of sense and if she weren’t so captivated by a high-functioning sociopath currently on his way home and into another game (but this one is _it_ , this one is the penultimate one, this will be what makes her entire world) orchestrated by her, she thinks she could have gone for a man like Tom.

 

But Tom isn’t a high-functioning sociopath and he’s only _just_ tolerable in that goofy sort of sense and Janine loves him (for all the good it’ll do either of them) and Molly knows, just _knows_ , that she would eat him alive. Men like Tom don’t belong with women like Molly.

 

(She’d kill him. Just like Molly kills everything. She’s poison. She’s toxic.)

 

She blinks and looks at him as he awaits her answer. “It’s everything I know.” She admits. “So yes, it is fucking worth it.”

 

* * *

 

“Welcome back.” She says softly, her eyes catching his in the mirror of her open locker. She’s calming down her heart from the scare he gave her.

 

He’s changed in the past two years, his face gaunt, but his eyes still shining brilliantly. She feels her chest tighten when she scans his body and sees the way his shoulders slump. _Oh Sherlock,_ she laments in her mind, _I did this to you, didn’t I?_

 

But then she thinks of Jim and her uncle and her father (and there’s the twist in her chest, there’s the breath being stolen from her lungs when she thinks about her father) and her heart hardens and she straightens her shoulders, noticing the way his eyes sharpen and study her.

 

(They’re forever studying each other, trying to glean more information _about_ one another _from_ one another without any words and Molly is more than curious at what he sees, what he knows and has she stumped him? Is she his biggest mystery?)

 

He looks around the locker room with passive boredom and sits along the bench, his Belstaff behind him, the hem trailing along the floor. “Glad to see nothing’s changed.”

 

She gives him a tight smile and looks downwards.

 

_(But Sherlock, can’t you see? Can’t you feel it? Everything’s changed.)_

 

* * *

 

She’s surprised and a little weary when he invites her on a case with him.

 

“I’m not John.” She tells him bluntly, her nails making crescent shapes in her palms from where she digs them in.

 

(It’s been difficult spending the last two years talking and pretending to like the man who killed her father and she wonders if the soldier in him senses something dark and untoward inside of Molly. He probably doesn’t. No one ever does.)

 

Sherlock frowns. “I’m not asking you to be John. I’m asking you to be Molly.”

 

_Which one?_ She wants to ask hysterically, inwardly laughing at the mess she’s made.

 

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

“Moriarty slipped up.” He says, his voice lower than usual and she knows, she just fucking _knows_ that he’s going to say something that will make her knees weak and will make her stomach feel like it’s ripping itself from the inside out and she almost wants to stop him from talking. Almost wants to tell him that he can _go fuck himself_ because she doesn’t _need_ this. Doesn’t need him. Doesn’t need anyone. _But that’s a lie, isn’t it?_ The darkest part of her mind tells her, taunts her and she’s ashamed to admit that it sounds a little like Jim and her uncle and her father (the three important men in her life) all jumbled into one.

 

(She doesn’t count Sherlock as one of the most important men in her life; he is her life.)

 

“He made a mistake.” He continues, oblivious to her inner battles. “The one person he thought didn’t matter to me, mattered the most.” The way he looks at her, his eyes haunted and hooded with emotion that Molly can’t place (isn’t willing to place) and if she’s reading his eyes properly, a little bit of betrayal, enough for Molly to take a step back, almost unnoticeable to anyone else, but she knows, just fucking _knows_ that Sherlock noticed. “You made it all possible.”

 

_I killed you_. Molly tells herself, _I killed you and I pretended to kill Jim and everything is all pretend except for me._

 

“But you can’t do this again, can you?”

 

She blinks and gives him a pained smile that she doesn’t even have to fake because just for today, she feels almost _normal_. She feels like _Molly Hooper,_ like the woman her mother wanted to be and the woman she secretly believes her father hoped she’d turn out to be.

 

What a fucking _disappointment_ she must be to them.

 

She babbles something about Tom and how they met and all the while her chest is thudding and there is a pressure in the back of her head and all she wants to do is scream. That’s all. Just scream.

 

They walk outside together and Molly watches him walk away.

 

(Molly always watches him walk away.)

* * *

 

She has never wanted to rip someone apart like she wants to rip apart Janine.

 

She stabs Tom’s hand and sees the way Janine sits straighter, her eyes narrow and Molly can see her breath catch in her chest. Molly cocks an eyebrow at her, just _daring_ her to do something, _anything_. Janine sinks back in her seat, eyes conceding.

 

Tom is nursing his bloodied hand and Mrs. Hudson and Greg are looking at her weirdly and she realizes that _she_ just _stabbed_ a _person,_ a living breathing human being and didn’t flinch. She almost wants to laugh and tell them that _this?_ _This is child’s play_ and _do you want to hear about everything else I’ve done?_

 

Instead she turns her head and watches the wheels in Sherlock’s mind turn and turn and turn. _It’s futile_ she thinks, because she’s got him beat at this.

 

It’s all going to go according to plan, the photographer will get his revenge and Molly gets a dead groom who killed her father. It’s all very poetic and Shakespearean and Molly shivers from excitement.

 

She glances sideways as Tom presses the handkerchief against his wounded hand. She mentally rolls her eyes.

 

_A meat-dagger._

 

(She thinks Jim would laugh until he cried and then choke Tom for even _thinking_ let alone actually _saying_ something _so fucking stupid_.)

 

* * *

 

There’s a saying about the best-laid plans.

 

Then again, there’s also a saying about how _hell hath no fury._

 

And Molly is _fucking furious_.

 

* * *

 

Her heels echo in the hall and she nods at the officer who slips around the corner and up the stairs, leaving her alone with the photographer.

 

She wraps her coat around herself tighter. The material keeping the cool draft away. It was a gift from her uncle, the coat. White as snow. Pure.

 

(Molly hates it but wears it anyways.)

 

“You had _one_ job to do.”

 

The man stutters and tries to slink back into the shadows but Molly’s hands reach out between the bars separating him from her and grabs him by his collar, slamming him against the bars and she ignores his whimpers and the crack of his nose. She can feel her face twist and her mouth sets into a snarl. “Just _one fucking job_.”

 

“I was close enough. That fucking detective-”

 

“ _This_.” She interrupts, “is why I _never_ listen to Jim about anything. For God’s sake. You’re an _amateur_.”

 

“I did this for my brother.”

 

She releases him, steps back and lets out a humorless laugh. “Yes, well, you’ll be seeing your brother soon.”

 

She’s almost to the door when he finally understands her meaning and she hears slamming against the bars and yelling for her to _come back_ and _she’s going to kill me! Why aren’t you wankers doing anything? You can’t do this to me, you’ll pay and –_ she shuts the door, effectively silencing him.

 

(Molly won’t pay a fucking thing. She owes no one anything. It’s the world that owes her everything.)

* * *

 

When the photographer’s body comes to her in the morgue, she never has so much fun cutting open a dead body.

 

( _Let this be a lesson_ , she thinks as she cuts him open, _to anyone who thinks of wronging me_.)

 

* * *

 

Three slaps.

 

One for her uncle.

 

One for her father.

 

One for her.

 

She needs him focused, she needs him sane, she needs _him_ if they’re going to come out of this unscathed. 

 

_Do you feel it?_ She wants to ask him, _do you feel the change coming Sherlock?_

* * *

 

“Are you ready?” Her uncle asks her, as he looks at her over the rim of his glasses as he puffs on his pipe.

 

She nods, the words suddenly stuck in her throat. She looks around the room, hands gripping the armrests of her chair tightly.

 

“This’ll be fun.” He leans forward and gives her a smile (no sincerity and all teeth), “you’re father, he would be proud of you.”

 

Molly’s eyes snap up to meet his and she remembers when she was young and her father would tell her that her uncle would be coming, she would wait by the door, listening for the sound of his car and when she would hear it she would stand in front of the door, throwing herself into his arms and he would _always_ catch her, throwing her up in his arms and catching her. “Apple!” he would say in a voice not loud enough to be jovial but soft enough for it to mean something reverent.

 

“Why Apple?” Molly asks. She watches as he leans back and arches an eyebrow. “Why have you always called me Apple?”

 

He puffs on his pipe and stays silent.

 

She almost thinks he’s not going to answer, so she gets up, presses a kiss to his head and makes her way to the door, hand on the doorknob.

 

“Eve was given the choice of biting the apple or not.” Her uncle tells her.

 

She frowns at the sudden religious session. She wills herself to keep looking at the door as she waits for him to continue.

 

“I always knew you would either save us or damn us all. _That’s_ why I call you apple.”

 

Molly blinks, turns the knob and leaves the room.

 

(They were all damned long before she came along.)

* * *

 

_(You’re going to be the last one standing, Molly. I know you are.)_

* * *

 

She thinks it’s odd.

 

John kills her father.

 

She pretends to kill Sherlock.

 

Sherlock kills her uncle.

 

(And _this_ , everything she has built, everything she has watched grow and expand, this entire empire they built, _it’s all hers_.)

 

* * *

 

She stares at the three tombstones, eyes downcast in respect, hands clasped in front of her.

 

_I always knew you would either save us or damn us all._

 

“I’m sorry.” She whispers and traces the last name on each of them, ingraining the feel of stone beneath her fingertips and the swoop and dip of each letter.

 

_MAGNUSSEN._

 

(Molly knows the empty lot next to her mother is waiting for her and she’ll be there someday, but not today.)

 

Not today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I JUST LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. M'KAY?


	5. Nothing but the water (is going to bring my soul to bare)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Jillypups.
> 
> Also, here be smut. And like some really vague noncon stuff. But nothing major. I've added that element to the tags but please HEED THE WARNINGS.

“I need you to do something.” She says into the phone. She doesn’t bother with any pleasantries.

 

_“Hello Jim.”_ Jim mocks, his voice cutting in and out but Molly understands him (Molly has _always_ understood him) and rolls her eyes at his dramatics. _“How are you? How is retirement? I’ve missed you so.”_

 

“Cut the shit, Jim. I need you to do something.”

 

Jim snorts and she can almost picture him shaking his head. _“Fine. I give. What do you want?”_

 

“Mycroft.” She says, the name bitter in her mouth, “In all his infinite _wisdom_ , has sent his brother on a suicide mission.”

 

Jim is silent. “ _Am I supposed to be upset that Sherlock Holmes may actually die this time?”_

 

“Jim.” Molly snaps. “I need you to do something to get Mycroft’s attention. Something big enough that he will _have_ to make Sherlock stay.”

 

Jim laughs and it’s maniacal and a little bit unhinged (they’re all little unhinged.) _“You run an entire criminal empire and you’re still keeping tails on your little pet. I’d say that’s cute if it didn’t make me want to vomit.”_

 

“Just do something.”

 

He sighs and this time she hears the roll of his eyes. _“I did tell you that you would need me, didn’t I?”_

 

She hangs up in his ear, not bothering to say goodbye. ( _It’s a scary truth_ , she thinks, how she’ll always end up needing him one way or another.)

 

She can almost hear him laugh from across the world.

 

* * *

 

_“Did you miss me?”_ His voice and face mock her from the television.

 

She gasps, hand going to her chest in surprise and she bites her lip to keep from laughing.

 

She feels a buzz in her pocket and she takes her phone out to see one message from a blocked number.

 

It’s a simple message, a taunting message.

 

_Did you miss me?_

 

She can picture his cheeky dimpled grin as he stares at the sun on a beach, cocktail in one hand and a book, likely _Art of War_ that he can never seem to finish, in the other hand.

 

She doesn’t answer back and deletes the message. But she knows that he knows her answer without having to send anything.

 

(More than you know.)

 

* * *

 

He’s taken to invading her flat. She doesn’t mind, not really.

 

Any secrets she has are all locked up, waiting for the day he _finally gets it_ and she can finally unlock the doors and let him in, spreading her arms and welcoming him into her mind, her soul, her empire.

 

Most of the time, he takes the spare bedroom, pacing and muttering to himself while she sits in the sitting area, idly flipping through television channels and sipping on tea.

 

And then there are nights when he won’t use the spare room and instead he’ll sit across from her, it doesn’t matter where she’s at, whether she’s at the kitchen table, or on the couch or lounging in her bed, he’ll always ( _always_ ) take the seat across from her and stare at her, his eyes flitting over her face, her body and her breath always ( _always_ ) catches. Her heart stutters and skips a beat and all she can think about, all she can comprehend is the way he’s staring at her so intently, the way his eyes try to tear back layer after layer until she’s bare and vulnerable in front of him.

 

Sometimes, on those particular nights, she wants to laugh at him, softly kiss his lips and tease him until he’s an incoherent jumbled mess and then, only then, when he whispers her name in agony, does she want to tell him that she’s _not_ vulnerable, she’ll _never_ be vulnerable.

 

Instead, on those particular nights, after he is done attempting to bare her soul open to him with his eyes, they meet somewhere in the middle, all teeth and harsh gasps, hands greedy for more. Moans and groans fill the air, hitches of breaths and pleas for _more, more, more_ , tumbling from mouths and fingers yanking in the bed-sheets, clawing at them in ecstasy, until her lungs burn and her heart beats thunderously in her chest, a feral noise emitting from the back of her throat until stars explode behind her eyes and her back arches as if she were possessed. 

 

(But she _is_ , Molly will muse, she is possessed. She’s _always_ been possessed.)

 

In the morning, he’s always gone.

 

(Molly pretends she doesn’t mind.)

 

* * *

 

“Why haven’t I heard anything from him?” Sherlock mumbles one night.

 

She frowns.

 

“Molly.” He calls out, his voice is soft but there is something beneath it, something calculating, something _so_ familiar that it makes her spine tingle and her heart drop to her stomach. “Why haven’t I heard from him yet?” She doesn’t have to ask who, she already knows.

 

_Probably_ , she thinks to herself, _because he’s lounging on a beach, cocktail in one hand,_ Art of War _, that he still hasn’t finished in the other and his cock buried deep someone._

 

Jim always did know how to have a good time. (He was always the carefree one out of them.)

 

“I don’t know.” She answers.

 

He nods and leans back in his chair but he stares at her like he knows she’s lying.

 

* * *

 

He’s desperate in the way he moves against her, with her, _in_ her. Like he’s trying to memorize every little sound she makes, every move she makes and the way she clings to him desperately.

 

It’s a frenzied thing, him and her, but he moves deeply, presses against her in all the right places. One hand grabs her hip and the other reaches for her hand and they squeeze, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to make her whimper. Their bodies are slick with sweat and his breath is hot against her neck where his face is buried, lips burning a trail from her pulse to her collarbone and back again. He whispers reverently against her skin and every part of her aches.

 

She gasps his name; words falling from her lips with ease and all she can think about is _him_. All she can feel and smell and see is _Sherlock Holmes_ and Molly could die here, in his embrace and be happy (or however close to it she can get.)

 

She cries out, sobs catching in her throat, an almost inhuman sound escaping her when she explodes. She barely catches her breath when he turns them expertly (she taught him everything he knows) and she straddles him. Still whimpering, she moves above him, watching as his eyes drink her in, eyes wide, pupils blown black.

 

“Sherlock.” She cries out, “Sherlock. _God. Sherlock_.”

 

(He’s the only man to ever make her plead for anything and _God_ , she’s _never_ wanted someone as badly as wants ( _needs_ ) Sherlock Holmes.)

 

His hand reaches between them and his long fingers stroke her, flicking her clit and she lets out a muted scream, arching her back away from him as she comes again, tears leaking from her eyes at the intensity. She feels him tense not even a moment later, his body going rigid and she feels the warmth, his warmth, and she collapses against him. Bodies sticking to one another, both of their chests heaving, words, for once, failing them and the scent of sex swirling in the air until it chokes them.

 

She winces when she slides off of him, lying on her back, arms hanging loosely, aching and itching to reach out and touch him, to trace every contour.

 

Instead, she stares at him for a little while longer and when he turns his head to stare at her, the look in his eyes, almost ( _almost_ ) makes her stagger back. It almost ( _almost_ ) makes her feel guilty for everything she ( _him, they_ ) have done. And really, what _haven’t_ they done? They are hunters and Sherlock Holmes has been their hunted, their prey for so long that sometimes, Molly forgets that he actually _isn’t_. Molly sometimes forgets that he’s smarter than anyone else (but not her, _never_ her) and she wonders about everything and nothing in the moments they stare at each other, their sweat cooling but the scent of sex still lingering heavily between them.

 

She doesn’t sigh. She doesn’t cower. She doesn’t lose eye contact with him. She’s calm, despite the raging and warring _everything inside_ of her. “How long have you known?”

 

_I was so careful. What did I do to give it away?_

 

“I had my suspicions we met again.” He takes a breath and she watches the rise and fall of his chest, watches as his eyes war with an emotion she can’t name and when he looks at her, his voice lower than she’s ever heard it. “My suspicions were confirmed when your father died.”

 

She feels her body shake with barely restrained fury at the mention of her father. She clenches her fists, her fingernails making half-moon marks in the palm of her hand. “My father-”

 

“You _lied_ to me.” He tells her, his voice hitching just slightly.

 

This time, she does let out a sigh and her fingers slowly dart out to trace the contours of his face, of his chest, of his body. So, _this_ is the crux of the matter. It’s not that she’s tried to kill his best friend (though, she supposes it probably is), it’s not that she’s in league with Jim (though, she supposes it probably is), it’s not even that she isn’t a Hooper but rather a much more sinister and dangerous breed of _Magnussen_ (though, she supposes it probably is), it’s that she’s _lied to him for so fucking long_. “Everything I’ve done has been for you.” She confesses to him. She leans forward, her mouth going to the shell of his ear. “I knew you would be perfect the moment Jim mentioned you.” She feels him clench at Jim’s name. “I knew you were just like me, the moment I met you.”

 

“I.” He says, his voice hard, though he lies unmoving in her bed, the bed-sheets twisted around them, trapping them to the bed and to each other. “Am nothing like you.”

 

She lets out a soft laugh as she traces his ear with her tongue. Her blood pounds through her veins, flaming her body and her chest _hurts_. _Why does her chest hurt?_ “Sherlock,” she says softly into his ear, “you are meant for so much more than this. You are _perfect_ Sherlock, but _with me_ , you could be _magnificent_. Everything I have built, everything that I own, can be yours. It _should_ be yours.” She moves to his face until there’s a hair’s breadth between their lips and she considers it a victory when he doesn’t pull away from her, when he doesn’t push her away. She places her hands on his chest and feels a shiver run through his body. “ _Everything_ I’ve ever done has been _for you_.”

 

“I never asked for any of this.” He tells her just as softly, breaths exchanging with one another and he smells like long-gone cologne and peppermint and _fuck_ , he’s _intoxicating_.

 

She shakes her head, her hair falling around them, shrouding them. “You were bored. You _are bored_. You were bored when I first met you. It’s why you turned to drugs; you were bored when I saw you ten years later and now look at you, you’re _drowning in boredom_. Domesticity suits many people, Sherlock, but _not_ you. Never people like _us_.”

 

“I am not like you.” He repeats again, as if saying it enough times will convince _her_ ( _him, them, everyone_ ) that the sentiment is true.

 

She gives him a sly smirk and maneuvers her body so that she’s lying atop him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her nipples hardening and his cock trapped against her stomach. She doesn’t say anything, just reaches her hand down between them, eyes never leaving his, and grasps his cock in her hand, stroking it until it hardens. She shifts until she’s straddling him, hand continuing to stroke him and watching Sherlock lose control underneath her. With her legs on either side on him, she pumps once, twice and then sinks down onto him, letting out a hiss as he fills her up. She doesn’t move right away, instead, she leans down, her nipples brushing against his chest hair and she bites back a groan as the sensation sends electricity through her body, the angle drags him deeper into her and she lets out a hitched breath as she steadies herself on her hands on either side of his head, trapping him to her. She presses her lips against his, not kissing, just breathing him in. “Admit it, there is a part of you that is aching to be with me. To join me.” She whispers, “Come away with me. We could be unbeatable. _Unstoppable_. We could rule together, _you and I_.” She rights herself back up and then moves slowly, watching him watch her watching the both of them lose any semblance of control, of self, “Sherlock, come away with me, please.”

 

_Please. Please. Please._

 

(Sherlock Holmes has always been the only man to ever make her plead.)

 

* * *

 

When he leaves the next morning, she assumes he thinks she’s sleeping.

 

“Sherlock?” She calls out hazily, her body sore. She opens her eyes to see him at the threshold of her door, shirt half-buttoned and pants unzipped. He looks thoroughly shagged and _ruined_. “I’m giving you until midnight tonight. Come with me.”

 

He’s silent for moment and then he speaks, his voice low with vague interest. “And if I don’t?”

 

She yawns and stretches out in bed, concealing her wince as her muscles and body scream in protest. The sheet fall away from her and she watches him stare unabashedly at her nude body and her hardened nipples in the cool morning. She gives him a lazy smile and turns over on her side. “I’ll burn your heart out.” She promises him.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not coming.” She says into the phone, as her watch pass the midnight mark.

 

_“You knew I wouldn’t.”_

 

“I did.” She concedes, her chest exploding and her heart sinking to her stomach. “Though I had hoped you would prove me wrong.”

 

_“Out of respect for how long we have known each other, I’m giving you twelve hours before I find you.”_

 

She lets out a laugh and grins, all teeth, no lips. _A true Magnussen smile,_ she thinks. _How long they’ve known each other_ … _of course_ , leave it to _Sherlock fucking Holmes_ to compartmentalize everything they’ve shared to _how long they’ve known each other_ , as if he and she aren’t _one and the same_. “Oh, Sherlock. You’ll _never_ be able to find me. Not with your brother’s contacts or with John’s contacts and not even with Mary’s contacts. I’ll always be within your reach and just when you think you have me, I’ll escape. It’s what I do. You want to know you _why_? Do you want to know _how_?”

 

_“How?”_

 

“Because I’m _smarter_ than you. Because I _will_ be your greatest challenge. Because I _will_ be your _greatest game_.”

 

“ _I never knew you at all_.” He admits and Molly can almost hear the regret, can almost hear the sadness and _frustration_ in his voice. Because Molly was a _constant_ in his life (even when she was gone and they were separated, she haunted his _every fucking move_ , his _every fucking thought_.) She was his first everything. She’s imprinted on his heart and soul and mind. It’s not until _this_ exact moment that she realizes she consumed him just as much as he consumed her.

 

_Disappointment_ , she thinks, _is a bitter pill to swallow, isn’t it?_

 

“I’ll tell you all you need to know.” She replies. “I’m Molly Magnussen. I run the largest criminal network in the world. I am _everywhere_. I do not forgive. I do not forget and I will _burn your world to the fucking ground_. I will _burn your heart out_ , Sherlock.” _Just like you did mine._ There’s silence on the other line and if it weren’t for his breathing, she would think he hung up on her. “Sherlock?” She calls out softly.

 

_“What?”_

 

“Let the final game begin.”

 

She hangs up and then drops her phone to the ground, slamming her heel on it, watching and hearing it shatter.

 

She tilts her head back and takes a deep breath.

 

_(I always knew you would damn us or save us all.)_

 

* * *

 

The moon is brilliant in the sky, illuminating the house and yard with apple trees for miles; shadows dance across the grass and Molly can almost see herself as a child running through the grass and trees, munching on apples while sitting on her uncle’s shoulders. She can hear everything from up here, see everything from the ledge. London, she thinks, is a beautiful and haunting place where lost souls come to conquer and many fail.

 

(But not Molly. _Never_ Molly.)

 

It isn’t until her hands are numb and she can’t feel her fingers or her toes, that she smiles into the night, where no one can see her and her eyes gleam as she takes in her past, present, future and all the lights from the moon and the stars and thinks, _mine_.

 

She turns around and walks down from the roof, down the stairs and down hallways that she used to run down as a child. She can almost hear conversations behind closed doors, can almost imagine her mother, father and uncle, can almost remember the smell of peppermint and gingerbread, whiskey and cigars. She can remember the constant lessons as she fortified the walls of her mind fortress and how her uncle and father told her that _one day, this will all be yours, Molly._

 

The smell of gasoline is potent and she only realizes how much so, when she finally steps back outside. She stares at the house with walls and rooms full of secrets that Molly will take with her and she digs in her pocket, her fingers catching on a box of matches. She doesn’t hesitate when she lights a match, staring into the flame with gleaming eyes and she tosses it to the ground, the gasoline and fire catching.

 

She watches the house she once laughed, cried, played, schemed, grew and shattered in, burn to the ground. It’s only when she hears the distance sounds of sirens does she get in her car and drive away, a plan already finalizing itself in her mind. It’s all a game and games are what Molly is good at. Games are what Molly excels at. She looks in her rearview mirror and sees the house turn to ash and she smiles, because this, _this is the beginning_.

 

It has always been her beginning.

 

(Out of the ashes rises a phoenix. Or so they say.)

 

* * *

 

(She always knew she would be the last one standing.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT. THANK YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH! LIKE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH. I JUST WANT TO SOB WITH GRATITUDE. JUST...THANK YOU. 
> 
> Also, Jillypups, I did tell you this was going to be dark, yeah? Hope you liked it! :)
> 
> So, over on FFN, I usually post every chapter with an accompanying song. So, I'm just going to list them all here if any of you are interested!
> 
> Chapter 1 - Ghost by Ingrid Michaelson  
> Chapter 2 - Nightcall by London Grammar  
> Chapter 3 - Smother by Daughter  
> Chapter 4 - Scream my name by Tove Lo  
> Chapter 5 - Centuries by Fall Out Boy
> 
> THANK YOU ALL AGAIN!!! YOU'RE ALL AMAZING

**Author's Note:**

> Told you it was going to be a dark one?
> 
> Molly Magnussen...need I say more? Really though? Like I so wanted this to happen it's kind of unbelievable. Scratch that - I know it's unbelievable but still. Hope you all enjoy the ride!


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